Proving he’s the most consistent, longest-running activist in the Shire, Dave Ridley from RidleyReport.com once again returns to Keene to occupy the hallways and confront bureaucrats and politicians with tough questions. If you want to jump straight to the encounter with Keene Police, it’s here. However, if you have time, it’s one of a series of entertaining videos Ridley recorded while attempting to attend a “public” meeting at Keene State College.
Ridley is known for his excellent “ambush” interviews of politicians and bureaucrats and this series doesn’t disappoint with ridiculous reactions a-plenty. In the initial video in the series, he actually gets some answers to his questions from city councilor Phil Jones:
Immediately after, the interactions return to what longtime Ridley Report viewers expect from bureaucrats and political people that Ridley ambushes – evading, cowardice, and excuses: (more…)
This weekend there were nationwide anti-gun protests across the United States and one of them happened in Keene’s Central Square on Saturday morning. Nationally syndicated talk radio program “Free Talk Live” co-host Chris Rietmann came out with a sign announcing he was an AR-15 owner and inviting people to talk to him. Another talk show host, Vincent Freeman from “Questioning Authority” was there to document:
Also appearing in favor of freedom in the video is Robert from Vermont, a regular Free Talk Live caller. For all the people in NH who want to ban guns, they should just move to Massachusetts and they’ll instantly attain their goals.
Rietmann is a regular Thursday night co-host on Free Talk Live and Vincent’s show is live on Saturday nights. Both shows are streamed live now on Twitch in HD and of course are available in audio form via streaming and satellite on LRN.FM.
Now, in just the first quarter of 2018, an explosion of competition has hit the Manchester area. Two national Bitcoin Vending Machine operators have entered the NH market and added several machines. One company called Coinsource dropped three BVMs into Manchester back in late January and within a month, a Nevada-based company Coincloud placed a BVM one block north of the original CVM at Murphy’s Taproom in Manch at a vape shop called Vaporamas.
Manchester’s CVM Explosion, as of March 2018
That same company has also placed units in brand new New Hampshire markets, also at vape shops in Nashua and Salem! Finally, New Hampshire’s newest BVM just went online about a week ago in Manchester’s Mall of New Hampshire in the food court. It’s a smart location – people sitting around eating have more time to get curious about the machine and maybe check it out. The operator of the mall unit is the brand new “Simple BTC LLC”.
That’s a total of 13 Cryptocurrency Vending Machines (though the units from Coincloud, Coinsource, and Simple BTC are BTC-only at this time) in and across Southern New Hampshire. Sadly, the Twin Mountain BVM in the North Country closed when the gas station housing it went out of business last year. Compare NH to Massachusetts, where according to the excellent website “Coin ATM Radar” there are 24 CVMs for 6.79 million people, which is one machine for every 283,101 people. In NH it’s 13 CVMs for 1.35 million people, which is one for every 103,846 people. New Hampshire is crushing Massachusetts with more affordable rates at its machines and nearly three times more CVMs-per-capita! NH even beats out NY, CA, and FL ranking at #5 nationwide for CVMs-per-capita, with almost ten machines per one million population (using 2015 numbers and data from Coin ATM Radar). You can see where your state ranks on this spreadsheet. (more…)
After a sparsely attended deliberative session Saturday, two petition warrant articles will go onto the Keene School District’s ballot with significant amendments.
A range of other proposals, including a collective bargaining agreement for principals and supervisors and appropriations for building maintenance and special education reserve funds, will appear on the ballot as proposed.
Though 77 registered voters attended the session — about 0.4 percent of the district’s 17,855 registered voters — a few vocal individuals seemed to dominate discussion Saturday morning.
Early in the meeting, two amendments to the district’s $66,661,091 operating budget were proposed, but ultimately voted down. The proposed budget is up 0.6 percent from the $66,150,293 budget voters approved last year.
The first amendment, proposed by Keene resident and former Keene High football coach John Luopa, would have added $311,425 to the operating budget, with the funds intended for step increases for teachers.
The Keene Board of Education and the teachers union failed to reach a new contract agreement this year, and in the absence of a new agreement, the previous teachers contract reached four years ago will remain in effect beyond its set expiration, on June 30.
A few board members, including Kris Roberts, George Downing and Susan Hay, opposed the amendment, noting that any potential step increase should ideally be reached through a collective bargaining process.
Downing also clarified that though voters have the power to add funds to the proposed budget at the deliberative session, they don’t have the power to restrict what those funds would be used for.
On a secret ballot vote, the amendment failed, 40-18.
A second amendment to the operating budget was proposed by Conan Salada, a Keene resident and former candidate for state representative and Keene City Council, to decrease the operating budget by $410,796, to match the previous operating budget. Salada argued that the district’s spending per student is too high.
“It shouldn’t cost that much to educate our youth for what is basically daycare. The amount of money being spent, a quarter million dollars for the life of a kid, we should be turning out engineers, rocket scientists, doctors,” Salada said. “And yet half of these kids probably couldn’t pass an entrance exam in the local college.” (more…)
In April of 2017 Darryl and I were traveling back to Keene from Taco Beyondo in Hillsborough (they accept Bitcoin Core and DASH, by the way) and were waylaid by four armed, uniformed men. They surrounded the car and issued a written threat over what they call “misuse of plates” due to the Shire Society plate on the back of the car at the time.
This video contains the original pullover from April 2017, the full trial at Hillsborough District Court in New Hampshire in January 2018 and then the sentencing hearing from February 2018.
I was found guilty and sentenced to twelve hours of community service – but I had fun asking the cop some interesting questions in court. Enjoy the video:
Ron Paul Speaks at Anarchapulco 2018 to a Full House – Photo by Luke Rudkowski
For many years, the Porcupine Freedom Festival was the must-go libertarian/voluntarist/anarchist yearly gathering. Many would travel from around the United States and globe to attend. Maybe they enjoyed the various speakers and panels, relaxed camping atmosphere and beauty of the location at Roger’s Campground, or the various activities like Buzz’ Big Gay Dance Party. Or maybe it was just the fun of being with other liberty-minded people for a week in the woods during the Summer of northern New Hampshire. Whatever it was that attracted people, Porcfest was the key such gathering for many years.
Unfortunately, due to certain prudish elements Porcfest made a critical error and jumped the shark in 2016. After many longtime attendees dropped out in protest, the event has re-branded itself as a family gathering. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it has limited the event’s turnout for the last couple of years. According to attendees of the last two years, Porcfest is just not what it used to be.
According to our discussions with organizers over the many years my radio show, Free Talk Live, broadcast from Porcfest, the top turnout they had was about 1,700 – that number reached after about a decade of events.
Now in just its fourth year, Anarchapulco has already hit 1,700 ticketed attendees! For those unfamiliar, Anarchapulco is a hotel convention in Acapulco, Mexico that is attracting a very diverse, international audience. Attendance more than tripled between 2017 and 2018’s events. This year, for the first time, it was SOLD OUT!
Adam Kokesh joins from the Free Talk Live broadcast table at Anarchapulco 2018.
The speakers couldn’t get any bigger. Ron Paul spoke to a standing-room-only crowd, former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney came out on-stage as an anarchist with Libertarian Party 2020 presidential candidate Adam Kokesh, and dozens more spoke on everything from cryptocurrency to economics to esoteric conspiracy kookery. The attendees were in good spirits and ranged from crypto-suits to crypto-hippies! Seriously, everyone was into cryptocurrency. At least that’s how it seemed from the conversations in the hallways.
Most of the event’s sponsors were cryptocurrency-related including prime event sponsor Bitcoin.com, DASH, PIVX, and others. In fact, as they did the previous year, the final day of Anarchapulco was completely dedicated to crypto-related speakers. They called that Cryptopulco.
Like last year, music was an important part of the convention with nighttime performances from Wu-Tang, Jordan Page, Backwordz, and others. Art was also once again present with artists creating beautiful works right in the main hall at the front of the stage. The location was spectacular. It was held this year at the Princess resort right on the beach in Acapulco.
No attendee I spoke with had anything bad to say about the event – it was all rave reviews. Everyone I spoke with is planning to return with friends in 2019 and tickets are already available at Anarchapulco.com for 2019. They’re moving to the venue’s largest event room and can next year hold approximately 4,000 attendees. Expect 2019 to sell-out as well, so get your tickets soon. We hope to see you there.
If you want a taste of what it was like to be there, we did several days of broadcasting Free Talk Live from the event and featured a bunch of the speakers and sponsors of the event on-air. Here they are in chronological order:
